Posted by [Roger] on February 02, 2001 at 19:19:29:
Location: NYC
I really don't want to make this forum into a place to bash the net or "internet photographers and models". But there is a thread below that suggests this may be a useful post.
From time to time we see posts from well-meaning people who tell us that "the internet will take over the role of the traditional land-based agencies." Uh, no, I don't think so.
The net is already being used by "land-based" agencies, some more than others. Undoubtedly that will increase. But there will remain a need for brick and mortar, places where people actually meet and "business" takes place. Let me give an example of how an agency influences what a "model" is:
There is a 15-year old girl who posts on another forum that she is a "model", and is seeking commercial print work. Also seeking an agency to represent her. I don't pay much attention to those things, and normally wouldn't have contacted her. But in this case she also sent some pictures and a letter via snail mail to my agency, just like other aspiring models do. The pictures were no more than snapshots, but they showed a girl who actually may have some potential in the commercial print market.
I still wouldn't have called her - we would much rather deal with models that require less "care and feeding" than girls who only have snapshots, and my market isn't very big for 15-year olds. But it happened that at on that very day we got a substantial job in for girls just like her - and I have very few of them in the agency. So I called her mother.
Just as the girl had said on the forums, mom was aware of her daughter's plans to be a model and supported them. Or at least she did until we talked for a bit. Was her daughter available to go to go-sees during the day? "Uh, don't they ever have them on weekends? She is in a very strict school." She would have to go to a go-see and then take off a whole day for a shoot, if she was chosen. "Oh. I suppose we could arrange that if it doesn't happen very often." Well, there are frequently tens to hundreds of girls at a go-see, so you usually have to go to quite a few before you actually get a job. "Oh, we didn't think about that."
There was more, but the bottom line was that mom and the girl wanted her to be a model, but weren't prepared to deal with the things that being a model requires. They were nice, intelligent, normal people who simply didn't understand how the business works - and when confronted with what it would take to actually do what she said she wanted to do, she realized that she couldn't do it.
Now it's not my purpose to bash either that girl or her parents. Rather, to point out that one of the functions of a model agency is to have exactly that conversation with every model (and, if they are young, with the parents) to make sure that they understand what they are getting into. If they aren't prepared for go-sees, comp cards, test shoots, wardrobe, makeup . . . all the things that a model has to do, then the agency won't list them. And clients count on that - which is one of several reasons why "land-based" agencies get those commercial calls, instead of a client looking through online "agencies" for models. What you find may look good, but are they really prepared for the business? A client doesn't want to guess, he wants to hold me responsible for the answer. And with every "net agency" that I am aware of, he can't.